Senator Kennedy’s Endorsement Address

Remarks of Senator Edward M. Kennedy
On Endorsement of Senator Barack Obama for President
January 28, 2008

As Prepared for Delivery

Thank you, Caroline. Thank you for that wonderful introduction and for your courage and bold vision, for your insight and understanding, and for the power and reach of your words. Like you, we too “want a president who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again.” Thank you, Caroline. Your mother and father would be so proud today.

Thank you, Patrick, for your leadership in Congress and for being here to celebrate and support a leader who truly has the power to inspire and make America good again, “from sea to shining sea.”

Thank you, American University.

I feel change in the air.

Every time I’ve been asked over the past year who I would support in the Democratic Primary, my answer has always been the same: I’ll support the candidate who inspires me, who inspires all of us, who can lift our vision and summon our hopes and renew our belief that our country’s best days are still to come.

I’ve found that candidate. And it looks to me like you have too.

But first, let me say how much I respect the strength, the work and dedication of two other Democrats still in the race, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. They are my friends; they have been my colleagues in the Senate. John Edwards has been a powerful advocate for economic and social justice. And Hillary Clinton has been in the forefront on issues ranging from health care to the rights of women around the world. Whoever is our nominee will have my enthusiastic support.

Let there be no doubt: We are all committed to seeing a Democratic President in 2008.

But I believe there is one candidate who has extraordinary gifts of leadership and character, matched to the extraordinary demands of this moment in history.

He understands what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called the “fierce urgency of now.”

He will be a president who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past. He is a leader who sees the world clearly without being cynical. He is a fighter who cares passionately about the causes he believes in, without demonizing those who hold a different view.

He is tough-minded, but he also has an uncommon capacity to appeal to “the better angels of our nature.”

I am proud to stand here today and offer my help, my voice, my energy and my commitment to make Barack Obama the next President of the United States.

Like most of the nation, I was moved four years ago as he told us a profound truth—that we are not, we must not be, just red states and blue states, but one United States. And since that time I have marveled at his grit and his grace as he traveled this country and inspired record turnouts of people of all ages, of all races, of all genders, of all parties and faiths to get “fired up” and “ready to go.”

I’ve seen him connect with people from every walk of life and with Senators on both sides of the aisle. With every person he meets, every crowd he inspires, and everyone he touches, he generates new hope that our greatest days as a nation are still ahead, and this generation of Americans, like others before us, can unite to meet our own rendezvous with destiny.

We know the true record of Barack Obama. There is the courage he showed when so many others were silent or simply went along. From the beginning, he opposed the war in Iraq.

And let no one deny that truth.

There is the great intelligence of someone who could have had a glittering career in corporate law, but chose instead to serve his community and then enter public life.

There is the tireless skill of a Senator who was there in the early mornings to help us hammer out a needed compromise on immigration reform— who always saw a way to protect both national security and the dignity of people who do not have a vote. For them, he was a voice for justice.

And there is the clear effectiveness of Barack Obama in fashioning legislation to put high quality teachers in our classrooms—and in pushing and prodding the Senate to pass the most far-reaching ethics reform in its history.

Now, with Barack Obama, there is a new national leader who has given America a different kind of campaign—a campaign not just about himself, but about all of us. A campaign about the country we will become, if we can rise above the old politics that parses us into separate groups and puts us at odds with one another.

I remember another such time, in the 1960s, when I came to the Senate at the age of 30. We had a new president who inspired the nation, especially the young, to seek a new frontier. Those inspired young people marched, sat in at lunch counters, protested the war in Vietnam and served honorably in that war even when they opposed it.

They realized that when they asked what they could do for their country, they could change the world.

It was the young who led the first Earth Day and issued a clarion call to protect the environment; the young who enlisted in the cause of civil rights and equality for women; the young who joined the Peace Corps and showed the world the hopeful face of America.

At the fifth anniversary celebration of the Peace Corps, I asked one of those young Americans why they had volunteered.

And I will never forget the answer: “It was the first time someone asked me to do something for my country.”

This is another such time.

I sense the same kind of yearning today, the same kind of hunger to move on and move America forward. I see it not just in young people, but in all our people.

And in Barack Obama, I see not just the audacity, but the possibility of hope for the America that is yet to be.

What counts in our leadership is not the length of years in Washington, but the reach of our vision, the strength of our beliefs, and that rare quality of mind and spirit that can call forth the best in our country and our people.

With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion.

With Barack Obama, we will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight against gay.

With Barack Obama, we will close the door on the old economics that has written off the poor and left the middle class poorer and less secure.

He offers a strategy for prosperity—so that America will once again lead the world in better standards of life.

With Barack Obama, we will break the old gridlock and finally make health care what it should be in America—a fundamental right for all, not just an expensive privilege for the few.

We will make the United States the great leader and not the great roadblock in the fateful fight against global warming.

And with Barack Obama, we will end a war in Iraq that he has always stood against, that has cost us the lives of thousands of our sons and daughters, and that America never should have fought.

I have seen him in the Senate. He will keep us strong and defend the nation against real threats of terrorism and proliferation.

So let us reject the counsels of doubt and calculation.

Let us remember that when Franklin Roosevelt envisioned Social Security, he didn’t decide—no, it was too ambitious, too big a dream, too hard.

When John Kennedy thought of going to the moon, he didn’t say no, it was too far, maybe we couldn’t get there and shouldn’t even try.

I am convinced we can reach our goals only if we are “not petty when our cause is so great”– only if we find a way past the stale ideas and stalemate of our times – only if we replace the politics of fear with the politics of hope – and only if we have the courage to choose change.

Barack Obama is the one person running for President who can bring us that change.

Barack Obama is the one person running for President who can be that change.

I love this country. I believe in the bright light of hope and possibility. I always have, even in the darkest hours. I know what America can achieve. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it—and with Barack Obama, we can do it again.

I know that he’s ready to be President on day one. And when he raises his hand on Inauguration Day, at that very moment, we will lift the spirits of our nation and begin to restore America’s standing in the world.

There was another time, when another young candidate was running for President and challenging America to cross a New Frontier. He faced public criticism from the preceding Democratic President, who was widely respected in the party. Harry Truman said we needed “someone with greater experience”—and added: “May I urge you to be patient.” And John Kennedy replied: “The world is changing. The old ways will not do…It is time for a new generation of leadership.”

So it is with Barack Obama. He has lit a spark of hope amid the fierce urgency of now.

I believe that a wave of change is moving across America. If we do not turn aside, if we dare to set our course for the shores of hope, we together will go beyond the divisions of the past and find our place to build the America of the future.

My friends, I ask you to join in this historic journey — to have the courage to choose change.

It is time again for a new generation of leadership.

It is time now for Barack Obama.

******

He is Jesus, Joseph and Mary too.. the Holy Spirit hovers in Him. We have not sinned, No, Never!, but we seek Redemption and in His elevation it shall come to pass that we are in the river, in the river with St John the Baptist, Yes!, we shall be blessed! And washed new!… [not that we sinned, O No!]

With every person he meets, every crowd he inspires, and everyone he touches, he generates new hope that our greatest days as a nation are still ahead,

Speech for Kerry, 2004:

Those same values and optimism are what brought our forebears across a harsh ocean and sustained them through many brutal winters — that inspired patriots from John Adams to John Kennedy to John Kerry, and their strong belief that America’s best days are still ahead.

Monday:

With Barack Obama, we will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight against gay.

2004:

Yet in our own time, there are those who seek to divide us. One community against another. Urban against rural. City against suburb. Whites against blacks. Men against women. Straights against gays. Americans against Americans.

In these challenging times for our country, in these fateful times for the world, America needs a genuine uniter — not a divider who only claims to be a uniter.

Monday:

love this country. I believe in the bright light of hope and possibility. I always have, even in the darkest hours. I know what America can achieve. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it—and with Barack Obama, we can do it again.

2004:

America must be a light to the world, and under John Kerry and John Edwards, that’s what America will be.

Monday:

Like you, we too “want a president who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again.”

2004:

John Kerry offers hope, not fear. The hope of real victory against terrorism and true security at home. Of good health care for all Americans. Of Social Security that is always there for the elderly. Of schools that open golden doors of opportunity for all our children. Of an economy that works for everyone. That’s the kind of America we’ll have with John Kerry in the White House.

etc. etc.

It looks like Bush wasn’t the only one recycling old speeches on Monday.

Whoa. The New York State chapter of the National Organization for Women attacked Ted Kennedy for his endorsement today with some real heat.. The Times Union reported it first (writing, “‘Scathing’ feels inadequate here.”), and I confirmed its authenticity with the president of the organization, Marcia Pappas.

I started to pick out the most eyebrow-raising passages but, that proved kind of hard, so here’s the whole thing:

“Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.

“And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). ‘They’ are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). They are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women’s money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future or whatever.

“This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation – to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who ‘know what’s best for us.’”

Thank you, American University. You’re not Harvard of Course.. Hopefully your naive “me too” idealism will sustain you as you try
and figure out how to pay back the 150 grand you owe our inbred wealth fund mangers after graduation. THEY went to Harvard.

[.. Laughter quickly ensues among the befuddled, instigated by professional advance staff in the crowd. ]

I feel change in the air. And in my pants. Ooops.

[.. Laughter and applause stops]

Every time I’ve been asked over the past year who I would support in the Democratic Primary, my answer has always been the same: Cocktails? Shall we?? I’ll support the candidate who inspires me, I said while swirling the scotch in my glass…who inspires all of us, who …………………………….Blah…………………………………………………..
……………………………..Bleet………………………………………………….
Who can perpetuate……………………………………..Camelot………….
………………………………the MYTH……………….

If I was in Obama’s camp I wouldn’t hesitate one bit to pick up that assinine piece by Marcia Pappas and run with it . It’s all surrogate garbage of course, but if they think they necessarily they can cow her opponents into letting it lie they’re mistaken. If Obam doesn’t run a surrogacy counter to that, you can be assured the GOP will in the fall. I frankly think it’d be easy to show her “broad support” oops, support among women, – to be much narrower indeed….

It’s ALL trading in cliches, caricature. The whole process.

What would Pappas say when confronted on that central truth?
It’s politics? Opponents are asking for it? Okay, fine.
That IS accurate , even fair enough. That said, when Hillary is boxed in later as the frigid, shrill, harpy from Wellesley, and having lost relevance and identification among younger women, they’ve really set up afucking disaster for themselves: The need to rely on “the Thinking Man” to hear the call. I swear, —- FUCKING IDIOTS.

After the Bush Presidency, it looks now that featuring a presumptive, dynastic approach upfront is proving to be a disaster…McCain has jumped through all of the RW hoops yet retains his own centrist myth. The scenario of the RW chilling on a Hill Prezzy is out the window I think. From their POV, They’re going to need a Branch of Gov to protect their turf with a D House and Senate. A Bloomberg run would kill her….

wellllllllll I did post the Pappas pop off (such as it is) last thread, the Ben Smith posting of it, full text.

I am happy to see ANY splits, not that abortion rights did itself many favors, in the end, by tying itself utterly to the Dem party.

What I liked about her PR was the graph (which I had bolded) telling of the Teddy transgressions.

Liberal Lion. LOL that is the short list. I always like to go back to 73, when he did a NCLB (which is afterall a step in the R plan to destroy public education) by steering the HMO legislation, selling it as “the first step in universal health care” – and think just recently the tapes of the WH were made available, with Nixon rubbing his hands in glee over sticking the HMO system of “managed care” ie doing less, on the American people.

Like Bush, he knew who would help sell it.

So it goes.

I hope the bitterness and unhappiness and dashed hopes and torched Camelot pass alongs from this run just tear the party into shreds. They will keep going of course…. but I’d love for them to have amny many bitter moments.

Yo know.. like Obama with Daddy at his side spurning HIllary’s handshake tonight. His saintliness is so great and, just now, dripping wet.

I don’t bother too much with PffterPoofters… tho when I saw peeder using “leftischer” a day or so ago, I have been dropping in. I do notice their traffic picked up from a couple months ago, when the site appeared to have gone behind the moon.

No doubt the Israel firsters began to pump it again at Dkos. They have never not mentioned PFF, a signal in my view.

Yo know.. like Obama with Daddy at his side spurning HIllary’s handshake tonight.

It was a trap.

If he had shook Hillary’s hand the next day the Clinton campaign would have released dark menacing hints about how Obama’s had “close physical contact” with a white woman and they have the pictures to prove it.

Security and privacy are not opposite ends of a seesaw; you don’t have to accept less of one to get more of the other. Think of a door lock, a burglar alarm and a tall fence. Think of guns, anti-counterfeiting measures on currency and that dumb liquid ban at airports. Security affects privacy only when it’s based on identity, and there are limitations to that sort of approach.

Since 9/11, two — or maybe three — things have potentially improved airline security: reinforcing the cockpit doors, passengers realizing they have to fight back and — possibly — sky marshals. Everything else — all the security measures that affect privacy — is just security theater and a waste of effort.

By the same token, many of the anti-privacy “security” measures we’re seeing — national ID cards, warrantless eavesdropping, massive data mining and so on — do little to improve, and in some cases harm, security. And government claims of their success are either wrong, or against fake threats.

You can see it in comments by government officials: “Privacy no longer can mean anonymity,” says Donald Kerr, principal deputy director of national intelligence. “Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.” Did you catch that? You’re expected to give up control of your privacy to others, who — presumably — get to decide how much of it you deserve. That’s what loss of liberty looks like.

It should be no surprise that people choose security over privacy: 51 to 29 percent in a recent poll. Even if you don’t subscribe to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it’s obvious that security is more important. Security is vital to survival, not just of people but of every living thing. Privacy is unique to humans, but it’s a social need. It’s vital to personal dignity, to family life, to society — to what makes us uniquely human — but not to survival.

If you set up the false dichotomy, of course people will choose security over privacy — especially if you scare them first. But it’s still a false dichotomy. There is no security without privacy. And liberty requires both security and privacy. The famous quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin reads: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” It’s also true that those who would give up privacy for security are likely to end up with neither.

.. if the Dems win all three, with good increase in majorities,they will soil their panties.

They’ll just pound the pork, enact a little Fluff, then
wordsmith the SHIT out of it….It’s-WHat-They- Do….About it..
It really is just about a piece of the action, not changing the game…

The problem is, the new wavers in the electorate,, by circumstance of age or previous disinterest- the new wavers don’t have the retrospective to see through it all. The rest don’t care to , hoping the mold grows slowly on their shrinking piece of cheese.

I do think the they’ll get that 60 D count in the Sen.,…just given the # of seats in play… and, immediately, a 1/3 of them will be back in step, wallkin on eggshells prior to the 2010 mid terms…And on it goes…

NOT a critical realigning election no matter what the result.

I think the House stays pretty much the same. I just can’ see a critical realigning election occurring on the coat-tails or train or whatever of a standard bearer so retro as Hill. I bet they’ll be a lot of “Independent” $$$ (sure) in Hill Hits targeted in congressional races particularly on NAFTA and Clintons Bank and Brokerage De Regulation. even though McCain and the the GOP pushed both. Balls bigger than Montana, but there it is……

The reasoning was that this was the state where we would have the chance to do the best, given my positions, given the pros and cons, given the resources we had, it would be better to apply them to a state this size,” he said. “If you contemplate defeat, you’re going to have defeat. If you contemplate victory, you give yourself the best chance of winning.”

He’s committed to Wednesday’s debate in California, but it feels like the end is near for Rudy — the lackluster crowds, the devastating quotes (from him and his advisers), the serene, almost resigned demeanor of his staff.

Per the Miami Herald: “Though he has acknowledged his campaign is sinking, Giuliani is acting like a fighter without taking any swings. . . . When asked what would happen after Tuesday’s vote, Giuliani said, ‘Wednesday morning, we’ll make a decision.’ ”

Giuliani “hinted broadly today he could end his presidential bid as soon as Wednesday,” the New York Daily News’ David Saltonstall writes. “His comments came as Giuliani staggered through a listless, final day of campaigning by hop-scotching across the state in a private jet and greeting small groups of supporters in bland airport hangars.”

[shrug] I still read PFF once in awhile but it’s hard to keep up with all the machinations. When the effort to figure out who is who’s sock puppet and who’s on the bank roll of which candidate or would like to be, etc. Not to mention all the tedious garden-variety misogyny. It ends up superseding the real news content which can mostly be found elsewhere without all the attached brouhaha.

One person’s “non-insular” is another person’s headache-inducing chaos. But I do rather like kraant.

Coast Guard officials who boarded the Cosco Busan to determine how much oil had spilled into the San Francisco Bay had trouble communicating with the Chinese-speaking crew – and ultimately had to use drawings and hand gestures.

The new detail, contained in the first major report on the response to the Nov. 7 oil spill, helps explain why the Coast Guard came up with the faulty initial estimate of 140 gallons – far short of the 58,000 gallons that were later reported to have leaked into the Bay.

The report, ordered by the Coast Guard, was being released today at a news conference on Treasure Island.

::snip::

So they tried something simple: “The … team used drawings, visual aids and hand signals to help communicate.”

The Coast Guard investigators ended up making a rough calculus based on their perceptions of the size of the ruptured tanks, the report found.

The agency had considered sending an interpreter, the report said, but decided it was not necessary.

The review faulted the Coast Guard for sending junior officers, who did not have extensive expertise in estimating oil spills, to do the assessment. A specialist with the state Office of Spill Prevention and Response was later able to calculate the spill at 58,000 gallons.

“While it is not certain how much the early response would have changed knowing the true volume spilled, certainly it would have helped alert stakeholders in the San Francisco Bay area … this was going to be a large scale response,” the report said.

Coast Guard officials did not learn the spill’s actual size until nearly 5 p.m. – almost eight hours after the spill – and did not issue a press release alerting the public until 9 p.m.

btw – I seriously had a bizarre dream last night that taylormatt showed up on an OG&P thread and apologized for all his doings as a kostopo… and you wonder why I’ve stopped trying to analyze my dreams.

Does anybody care that Clinton/Obama both jumped rushed to applaud Bush last night? What the fuck?

And Kos’ latest Republican rant against electoral fraud concern is hilarious. The synophants are better: “Thanks Kos! Now people won’t think we’re crazy next time we demand a recount — even though to demand a recount means we’re crazy! Here’s a pootie!”

Look how Kos insults his own readers and subscribers. He loves to pour chum in the water. The little bully-prince. This guy is clearly still working for somebody:

Overall, the poll average was 14 points off from the final results, worse than in New Hampshire. So this could only mean ONE THING — FRAUD!!!!!!!!

Did I mention that South Carolina uses ES&S touch screen machines with no paper trail?

But funny how there’s nothing but silence out there. Is there any doubt that if the results were reversed, and if Hillary had outperformed the polls by 12 points, that people would once again be crying about fraud, demanding recounts in the Palmetto State, and concocting all manners of fantastical theories to rationalize their skepticism? Apparently, since Clinton didn’t win South Carolina, the voting machines worked perfectly.

Perhaps the cries of fraud in New Hampshire had little to do with actual concerns about electoral integrity, and everything to do with irrational Clinton hatred and the pathological need to see dark conspiracies even were none exist?. (Apparently the Clinton cabal is capable of the darkest, most sinister conspiracies, but the Obama cabal is not.)

New Hampshire was crying “wolf!”, and for all the wrong reasons. As a result, they did the legitimate cause of electoral reform few favors.

(Stupid people prophylactic — no, this isn’t an endorsement of Hillary Clinton. I’m just pointing out that Hillary won New Hampshire fair and square, just like Barack won South Carolina fair and square.

The Iraq Veterans Against The War had urged Bush to proclaim A new GI Bill for Iraq veterans. “President Bush should call on Congress to pass a modern GI Bill by the end of his term. A new GI Bill would significantly stimulate the U.S. economy and go a long way toward helping our newest generation of heroes build a better life. “

He didn’t.

GI Bill, Jobs Bill, something for the poor starving masses….?

and another vote for WTF with the “response”… I say again, she drafts and converts R, and the Dems wuv her for it…. Such Bullshit!

DEMOCRATIC RESPONSE: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE

The Democratic Response was unbelievably tepid, toto, with the Governor of Kansas sounding like an old fashioned school marm calling for forging a bi-partisan consensus. There was no real criticism. It was soft and muddled, laced with soppy rhetoric about “getting the job done,” Instead of a democratic response. She said, we need an “American response.” There followed Wizard of Oz blather about the struggling economy. She closed by practically begging the President to “work with us. ”

Fat Chance: How sad and pathetic. Another opportunity missed.

LOL if you loved the 110th you will love the New Dem, Third Way Administration. My guess he will choose Reagan’s desk.

I hope Obama makes it thru. The whining of those whose dream is deferred would be so hard to live iwth. Better he go in… and peace reign in the land…. the Dem party knows, their electorate goes to sleep with a Dem in office.

It might eventually require an alcohol chaser, but the laughs abound (tired of “new” politics yet?):

McCaskill was on the plane with Obama to back up his alibi, and she scolded the press for reading something into nothing.

“It was not a snub,” she emphatically declared. “It was one of those accidents. Frankly everyone’s spoiling for a fight, which is the politics of old, you know this thing isn’t the politics of old. Its about new. It’s unfortunate that everyone is so anxious for there to be problem on a personal level and I gotta tell yah, its just not there.”

WASHINGTON — The government agency that enforces one of the principal laws aimed at keeping politics out of the civil service has accused the Justice Department of blocking its investigation into alleged politicizing of the department under former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales.

Scott J. Bloch, head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, wrote Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey last week that the department had repeatedly “impeded” his investigation by refusing to share documents and provide answers to written questions, according to a copy of Bloch’s letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

The Justice Department wants Bloch to wait until its own internal investigation is completed. A department official signaled recently that the investigation is examining the possibility of criminal charges.

But that, the regulator wrote, could take until the last months of the Bush administration, “when there is little hope of any corrective measures or discipline possible” being taken by his office.

Stall, stall, stall until Bush rides off into the sunset. Bushco will end up not being held responsible for anything. That’s a crime.

Bloch runs an obscure agency charged with protecting federal whistle-blowers from reprisal and enforcing the Hatch Act, which limits use of government resources for election purposes. He has gained a measure of renown for investigating reports that the White House gave political briefings about GOP election prospects to senior officials at federal agencies.

A controversial figure in Washington, he has been accused by subordinates of harassment and intimidation, and also of mismanaging his office. The Office of Personnel Management’s inspector general has been investigating these claims and is also looking into allegations that Bloch erased files on his own computers while the personnel office inquiry was under way.

He’s supposed to protect whistleblowers but when someone blows the whistle on him, he shrugs it off.

The co-pilot of an Air Canada flight from Toronto to London has been admitted into psychiatric care at an Irish hospital after “falling ill” in the cockpit during the flight.

Air Canada has revealed little about what happened on board the plane, but did say the pilot of flight 848 made an emergency landing in Shannon, Ireland, at 8 a.m. local time yesterday after his co-pilot became unwell.

Paramedics and a doctor were at the airport to treat the co-pilot, who has been reported by the Irish press to have suffered a nervous breakdown on board the flight.

“It’s not unheard of, but it is pretty rare,” said Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick of the emergency landing, adding: “At no time was safety an issue or compromised.”
[…]
An unnamed source at the airport told the Independent the co-pilot began “acting in a peculiar manner and was talking loudly to himself.” That same source said the co-pilot had to be restrained by other crew members and a passenger thought to be a member of the Canadian Forces.

yeah I think so… and as it threatned to and then did roil global markets. First it hit Britain then a few weeks ago Germany…

Well it is like health care, Americans want to believe that politicans will address it, now that it is so desperate, cost spiralling, more and more without coverage, etc. LOL… No increasingly, from what I read for years, more and more big companies indicate they want to be relieved of providing medical coverage. They won’t suppport the government looking into single payer (they’d fund a propaganda sweep against that!), but they want it put on the people, if not on them.

E voila!

Plans from MA to Oregon to CAL to pol after pol…. and esp passed along for some hamfisted resolution from the Nanny Party.

I don’t know why America (big gov’t) pushes this line that it can’t afford to fund universal/single payer health care. Canada does it and we have surpluses every year. No matter what the Dems are promising, I can’t see much of a change to the status quo coming anytime soon. Things move very slowly in gov’t as it is and making any huge changes in health care is bound to take decades in your country – if it ever happens.

A la Tommy Douglas, America needs a tireless advocate for change who’s really willing to push the issue to the limit but judging how Kucinich (who is one such person to an extent) was just pushed aside for being too far to the left, I really don’t see anyone on the horizon who’s willing to fight as hard as possible to make it happen.

Catnip & Mcat, I also started seeing stuff on the sub-prime crisis at least four years back. It was pretty apparent that this would be the direct result of the Fed’s approach to the dot com bust in combo with the relaxing of financial restrictions under Clinton. The housing bubble was purely manufactured to try to keep the illusion of a good economy afloat for a couple more years – and of course squeeze every last cent out of the poor & middle class before the economy went belly up.

Who knows, they may come up with some other scam to stave off the inevitable for a while longer, but someday & probably sooner than later, we are in for a hard crash. And it ain’t gonna be pretty as the ruling class will own everything. I’m talking sci-fi dystopic feudalism.

The housing bubble was purely manufactured to try to keep the illusion of a good economy afloat for a couple more years

Well I recall in speech after speech Bush being particularly proud that more Americans were now homeowners and I don’t remember any concern expressed about how that happened. This last-minute scrambling to “fix” things just seems rather hollow, to put it mildly.

I think food will become an issue. land availabel fro crops as well as trucking costs… think that has been discussed here before.

A few years ago an aquaintance whose Father in law owned three trucks… and basically was a produce trucker, said that parts of the country were underserved for fresh produce. The stuff was just not trucked in, and if they did nto grow some sort of crops in proximity, well… they went without.

It was hard to take in, from a CA perspective… but he was otu there on the roads, with the business and access to regions. If it was an issue 7, 8 years ago, it has to be worse and facing, at some stage, a tipping point.

I believe the ‘dot com dot died’, as I call it, was also manufactered, partly, to pull this area out of the recession of 89 – mid nineties… We really did nto move forward til the dottery dotters. the hype and the glee….

The “serious” progressive Dumhini gets called out for his orange-shirt fantasies on behalf of his corporate master, Kos:

Hilarious (1+ / 0-)

Recommended by:milkbone
This:

exit polling is our safeguard

…is evidence that the person who wrote it is completely ignorant about exit polls and voting integrity. If you think shoddy surveys with barely-trained people working one day on the cheap being paid for by cost-cutting television networks who want to trump results and call an election before the exit poll data is later weighted is a safeguard…well, there’s just no way to characterize what that says about you without being incredibly harsh.

Frankly, your entire comment is just ridiculously stupid. You’re not a serious person.

The revolution will not be televised, but we’ll analyze it to death at The Next Hurrah.

by DHinMI on Tue Jan 29, 2008 at 10:42:42 AM PST

[ Parent ]

funny-all of the sudden exit pollsters are idiots (0 / 0)

and incompetents. after decades of universal use of the exit poll as a safeguard, we need look no further than to your definitive conclusion on their uselessness.

oh, and fuck your personal insults. it says a lot about you, but then, you’re kind of like the site bully, aren’t you?

I’m convinced that much of the subprime thing is a form of predatory redlining. It’s like the financial “services” industry said, ‘you want us to make money more available in poor and black areas? Okay, here you go, SUCKERS,’ as soon as Clinton finished off the last of the laws put in place after the Depression. In fact:

– In a 2006 study, the Center for Responsible Lending found that when creditworthiness and credit risk were equal, African-Americans were still 31 percent to 34 percent more likely to receive higher rate, more expensive subprime loans than Caucasians.

– The National Community Reinvestment Coalition revealed that lenders on average made high-cost subprime loans to higher-qualified African-Americans 54% of the time, compared to 23% of the time for Caucasians, even when the Caucasian applicants were less qualified.

– The National Community Reinvestment Coalition revealed that lenders on average made high-cost subprime loans to higher-qualified African-Americans 54% of the time, compared to 23% of the time for Caucasians, even when the Caucasian applicants were less qualified.

Has there been a class action suit filed yet? This has massive settlement written all aover it.

Watching the coverage on MSNBC is a riot. Half of the R delegates won’t be seated and all of the Dems won’t either but they’re treating this like a big deal. Even more ludicrous are the numbers of absentees that voted LAST MONTH before the holidays.

That post says the NAACP has. There is an addendum at the end of the post by a guy who says he’s a black mortgage broker saying it’s all crap. Given the history of this country, I’m more than willing to believe it.

Legislation also planned for Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island; being explored for Maine, Maryland, and Wisconsin

(Washington, D.C.) — A bill introduced today declares that the 2002 federal authorization to call up the State National Guard has expired, and would set in motion steps to recall members of the Vermont Guard. Similar legislation will be introduced by legislators in Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, and is under active discussion in a half-dozen other states, notably Wisconsin, Maine, and Maryland.

Rep. Michael Fisher, lead sponsor of the Vermont bill, stated that, “it is clear that the mission that Congress authorized no longer exists. The President has no current or permanent legal authority to keep Guard members in Iraq. The Governor as Commander-in-Chief of the Vermont National Guard should take necessary steps to bring them home.”

The Vermont bill would limit future Vermont National Guard service to state duties unless properly called into federal service.

Ben Manski, executive director of the pro-democracy group, Liberty Tree, said that, “the debate over the Iraq War changed today in a simple, but profound way. This legislation is limited to recalling the Guard in the absence of congressional authorization. Yet as an attorney who has studied these questions, it strikes me that with this legislation, the states have begun to reassert their historic national defense responsibilities and to honor the Constitution’s genius for distributing power over issues of war and peace.”

In his State of the Union, the President asked Congress for $300 million for poor kids in the inner city. As there are, officially, 15 million children in America living in poverty, how much is that per child? Correct! $20.

Here’s your second question. The President also demanded that Congress extend his tax cuts. The cost: $4.3 trillion over ten years. The big recipients are millionaires. And the number of millionaires happens, not coincidentally, to equal the number of poor kids, roughly 15 million of them. OK class: what is the cost of the tax cut per millionaire? That’s right, Richie, $287,000 apiece.

Mr. Bush said, “In neighborhoods across our country, there are boys and girls with dreams. And a decent education is their only hope of achieving them.”

So how much educational dreaming will $20 buy?

-George Bush’s alma mater, Phillips Andover Academy, tells us their annual tuition is $37,200. The $20 “Pell Grant for Kids,” as the White House calls it, will buy a poor kid about 35 minutes of this educational dream. So they’ll have to wake up quickly.

-$20 won’t cover the cost of the final book in the Harry Potter series.

Those last two tag-on paragraphs in the Parker and Rasheed Los Angeles Times piece tell us much about the intervening 71 years, which included the German bombing of Rotterdam and the blitz of London as well as other English cities; the Japanese bombings of Shanghai and other Chinese cities; the Allied fire-bombing of German and Japanese cities; the U.S. atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the Cold War era of mutually assured destruction (MAD) in which two superpowers threatened to use the ultimate in airborne explosives to incinerate the planet; the massive, years-long U.S. bombing campaigns against North Korea and later North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia; the American air power “victories” of Gulf War I and Afghanistan (2001); and the Bush administration’s shock-and-awe, air-and-cruise-missile assault on Baghdad in March 2003, which, though meant to “decapitate” the regime of Saddam Hussein, killed not a single Iraqi governmental or Baath Party figure, only Iraqi civilians. In those seven decades, the death toll and damage caused by war — on the ground and from the air — has increasingly been delivered to civilian populations, while the United States has come to rely on its Air Force to impose its will in war.

One hundred thousand pounds of explosives delivered from the air is now, historically speaking, a relatively modest figure. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a single air wing from the USS Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier stationed in the Persian Gulf, did that sort of damage in less than a day and it was a figure that, as again last week, the military was proud to publicize without fear of international outrage or the possibility that “barbarism” might come to mind:

“From Tuesday afternoon through early Wednesday the air wing flew 69 dedicated strike missions in Basra and in and around Baghdad, involving 27 F/A-18 Hornets and 12 Tomcats. They dropped nearly 100,000 pounds of ordnance, said Lt. Brook DeWalt, Kitty Hawk public affairs officer.”

In his State of the Union, the President asked Congress for $300 million for poor kids in the inner city.

The Center for American Progress had this to say about that:

hours before the President’s speech yesterday, the White House excitedly told the media about “Pell Grants for Kids,” Bush’s new $300 million program for low-income students. But even this initiative was a recycling of previous voucher plans endorsed by Bush.

In his final State of the Union address, President Bush will contend that the withdrawal of an additional four combat brigades from Iraq—about 25,000 troops— by mid-summer represents his “return on success.” In reality, these 25,000 troops are being withdrawn out of necessity.

The president will claim these troops are being withdrawn as a reward for temporary security progress in Iraq. But an overwhelming number of U.S. military leaders recognize that after nearly five years of war in Iraq and over six in Afghanistan, the United States is unable to sustain current troop levels in Iraq due to the strain it has placed on our ground forces.

On another front (literally), Canada’s Conservative gov’t has said it will end its combat mission in Afghanistan when our mandate ends in Feb 2009 unless it gets 1,000 more troops in the south (besides the 1,000 the US is moving in there in the spring) and Bushco is saying it just can’t spare anymore. They’ve got almost 30,000 coming home but they can’t spare 1,000 for the war they abandoned? (Not that I want Canada to stay there. We should have come home long ago. In fact, we shouldn’t have gone in the first place.) This is just political bullshit being flung by Bush to EU countries who aren’t interested in fighting that war. In the meantime, the Canadian troops who are fighting in the south have to pay with their lives for his stubborn arrogance.

The report found that “some provide a lot of bang for the buck to the economy. Others … don’t,” said economist Mark Zandi.

In findings echoed by other economists and studies, he said the study shows the fastest way to infuse money into the economy is through expanding the food-stamp program. For every dollar spent on that program $1.73 is generated throughout the economy, he said.

“If someone who is literally living paycheck to paycheck gets an extra dollar, it’s very likely that they will spend that dollar immediately on whatever they need – groceries, to pay the telephone bill, to pay the electric bill,” he said.

WALL Street banks are among the 14 corporations under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for possible crimes relating to the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

The FBI will not identify the companies being investigated, but said the probe was industry-wide and included investment banks, developers, sub-prime lenders and companies that securitized loans.
[…]
The Securities and Exchange Commission has also opened about three dozen civil investigations into the sub-prime market collapse.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent who nearly won the vice presidency as a Democrat in 2000, says there’s no way he’ll be Republican Sen. John McCain’s running mate should McCain become the party’s presidential nominee.

Are they gonna Run on a diff re the War? Hillary? After her “fuck you, I’m voting for it, I studied it, whoops, I was taken in’ Bullshit going back to 2002-3? Lotta fuckers out there who are not against war itself…Just Losing one. And equivocation…And in their minds the shame of a shameful performance…And it ain’t just the white men.

Run on the Clinton Economy?

You mean the Clinton who signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act?
Where was Hillary’s work for change then?? Here’s where it gets hillarious, like the BlowJob shot heard round the world leaving Clinton a man alone, politically, with barely a charitable fig leaf as loin cloth…
A fig leaf offered only to save his HOSTS the embarrassment next cycle….

Here’s how shitty the Politics of Banking Dereg in 1999, a year into “the Lewinsky”, while the Clintons were tuned in, – 24/7- to the Home Shopping Network desperately looking for Jiz Be Gone.

The U.S. Senate voted 90-8 today to approve S. 900, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which will repeal the Depression-era barriers that separate banking, insurance and securities.

LOL. Sure Yeh sure, the Dems are insulated from the Banking collapse, and the Republicans are the only ones with Political Problems. LMAO. And Kerry was gonna Kick Bush’s ass in 2004…And Bush was going to be forced to resign. And Fitgiving, then Fitzmas, then the FitzEaster Bunny…

Tch. A person makes one stupid joke about the lighthouse scene in the first Battle Royale movie and then she never hears the end of it.

😀

bayprairie, #55:

Oh, did I miss some meltdown from kraant ? It couldn’t possibly have been as entertaining as Jools Blowhard Livingston Cigalis turning his much-admired daughter-in-law/girlfriend-in-law into a rustic Mexican sock puppet with which he berated us ugly American goils for not being soft and womanly enough to suit his taste.

Or Rev’s straight-faced declaration that those 60’s bitches like Hillary cut all the men off at the balls and that’s why everything sucks nowadays.

Or Mr. Stomach Flu doing, well… anything.

Or could it ?

Never mind. I’d rather have some of that rice pudding, if catnip left any in the fridge.

Are they gonna Run on a diff re the War? Hillary? After her “fuck you, I’m voting for it, I studied it, whoops, I was taken in’ Bullshit going back to 2002-3? Lotta fuckers out there who are not against war itself…Just Losing one. And equivocation…And in their minds the shame of a shameful performance…And it ain’t just the white men.

Run on the Clinton Economy?

You mean the Clinton who signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act?
Where was Hillary’s work for change then?? Here’s where it gets hillarious, like the BlowJob shot heard round the world leaving Clinton a man alone, politically, with barely a charitable fig leaf as loin cloth…
A fig leaf offered only to save his HOSTS the embarrassment next cycle….

Here’s how shitty the Politics of Banking Dereg in 1999, a year into “the Lewinsky”, while the Clintons were tuned in, – 24/7- to the Home Shopping Network desperately looking for Jiz Be Gone.

The U.S. Senate voted 90-8 today to approve S. 900, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which will repeal the Depression-era barriers that separate banking, insurance and securities.

LOL. Sure Yeh sure, the Dems are insulated from the Banking collapse, and the Republicans are the only ones with Political Problems. LMAO. And Kerry was gonna Kick Bush’s ass in 2004…And Bush was going to be forced to resign. And Fitgiving, then Fitzmas, then the FitzEaster Bunny…

It’s a fucking mess.
I’m supporting the Agitation/Monckeywrenching ticket in ’08.
And far beyond, by the looks of it…

In Fascist Italy under the regime of Benito Mussolini, castor oil was one of the tools of the blackshirts[40] [41] [42] Political dissidents were force-fed large quantities of castor oil by Fascist paramilitary groups. This technique was said to have been originated by Gabriele D’Annunzio. Victims of this treatment would experience severe diarrhea and dehydration, often resulting in death [43]

Sometimes when the blackshirts wished to make sure that the victim would die rather than simply be badly disabled, they would mix gasoline with the castor oil.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — It was lunchtime in one of Haiti’s worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti’s poorest can’t afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country’s central plateau.

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

As Mr. Giuliani ponders his political mortality, many advisers and political observers point to the hubris and strategic miscalculations that plagued his campaign.
::snip::

In interviews Tuesday, even before he gave a concession speech in which he spoke of his campaign in the past tense, Mr. Giuliani described his strategic mistakes, suggesting that his opponents had built up too much momentum in earlier primaries. But this is a rhetorical sleight of hand; he in fact competed hard in New Hampshire, to remarkably poor effect.

Perhaps a simpler dynamic was at work: The more that Republican voters saw of him, the less they wanted to vote for him.
::snip::

Mr. Giuliani also relied on a New York-style approach to photo-friendly crowds. “Rudy went very heavy on Potemkin Village stops, working what I call ‘hostage audiences,’ “ Mr. Cullen said. “It looked like he was campaigning, but he didn’t know who he was talking to.”

For all the attacks by Giuliani surrogates (eg Jamie Kirchik) on Ron Paul, hmmmm Paul’s still standing. Giuliani’s gone.

It’s just a shame we won’t get to see all of Giuliani’s racist past dragged out into the national sunlight. Bob Grant, the NYPD protest over the Brooklyn Bridge, Amadou Diallo, outing Patrick Dorismond’s juvenile records, his refusal to meet with ANY black leaders during his time in office.

At the end of his campaign, he seemed hardly to be running anymore, as if someone in the Romney or McCain campaign put him on notice that he’d be outed for what he was should he stay in the race.

And like the coward he was, he dropped out.

Goodby Rudy. Enjoy that blood money you made off of 9/11. You can hang out with your boyfriend Bernie Kerik in public now.

Rudy’s finally returned to where he belongs … a loathed and irrelavant figure. People outside NYC really don’t know how hated he was until he wandered around lower Manhattan that day on teevee. The man gave some okay speeches on the tube that day, but looking back I think they seemed good partly b/c there was such a vacuum left in the aftershock of the attack as nothing but a roaring silence was coming from DC. I remember even with the shock of the recent attacks the loud protests when he suggested extending his mayorality in teh aftermath. NYers were just so fucking sick of him.

So.

One of the participants in the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville was a man named Peter Tefft. He was outed by the Twitter group "Yes, You're Racist," which had been posting screenshots of participants in an effort to expose them. His father, Pearce Tefft, has come out and publicly denounced his white supremacist son in an open letter […]

Heather Heyer is the latest casualty in a number of deaths at the hands of white nationalists. Foreign Policy recently published an FBI and Department of Homeland Security bulletin that concluded white supremacist groups were "responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016...more than any other domestic extremist movement." Despite th […]

As President Trump faces growing outrage over his response to the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, we bring you an exclusive: an interview with the great-great-grandsons of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. At least 1,500 symbols of the Confederacy can be found in public spaces across the country. But now a number of the monu […]

In a wide ranging discussion, Nina Turner and Paul Jay focus on the role of Trump, the GOP, corporate Democrats and corporate media in perpetuating systemic racism; they also address whether Nazi's should have a right to organize public rallies

Ecuador's former president Rafael Correa is accusing recently elected president Lenin Moreno of moving the country to the right, using corruption accusations against Vice-President and Correa friend Jorge Glas as cover. TRNN's Greg Wilpert reports

BRIDGEWATER, N.J./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday decried the removal of monuments to the pro-slavery Civil War Confederacy, echoing white nationalists and drawing stinging rebukes from fellow Republicans in a controversy that has inflamed racial tensions.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has stepped up his attacks on Republican senators, an approach he may regret if he is someday impeached and the Senate has to weigh charges against him stemming from an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has abandoned plans to create an infrastructure advisory council, the White House said on Thursday, the day after two other advisory groups were dismantled over the furor caused by Trump's remarks on white supremacists.

(Reuters) - Wisconsin's Republican-controlled state Assembly voted 59-30 on Thursday to approve a bill that paves the way for a $3 billion incentives package for a proposed liquid-crystal display plant by Taiwan's Foxconn.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.